(I wrote this on Saturday, but didn’t get to edit it until Sunday.  Apologies for the delay.  Since I haven’t seen a lot of the nominated films, I won’t have an Oscar post, but do plan on watching the ceremony.)

I did the midday traffic shift yesterday, which gave me the opportunity to work on LUCY. Some of my most productive days are when I can work between reports.

I wanted to streamline the current section, which is basically everything after the midpoint. I also wanted to see if I could fit in my Irishman subplot a little sooner, resulting in payoff either by page 75, or into the final quarter of Act 2.

I was able to cut 3 scenes, for a tentative total of 24. If that seems high, keep in mind that more than a few are less than a page long. I have a tendency to overwrite during the outline phase. I throw it all out there: action, dialogue and a lot of notes to myself (Why does she do this?, what happens next?, expand!, etc)

A member of my old writing group once asked how I was going to get everything I had in the outline onto the page. I see the outline as a guide with nothing written in stone. And if I think a scene is too long, I’ll edit it down until I think it works.

My goal for this week is to get past the page 75 twist. Fingers crossed.

Movie of the Moment: K is a huge fan of zombie flicks. For those unaware, she grew up near Monroeville, PA, where the mall is from the original DAWN OF THE DEAD. She even has a Monroeville Zombies t-shirt from Kevin Smith’s company.

We watched the French horror THE HORDE, courtesy of Netflix. It has a great premise: a team of cops go into a gangster’s high-rise hideout to exact revenge for a fallen colleague. Then the building is attacked by zombies. Both sides team up to get out alive.

It was…okay.  Generous helpings of overacting, angry acting, repetitive dialogue and too-fast editing. I was under the impression there was lots of gore, but there wasn’t (at least for me). I was more squeamish when one guy kept slamming a zombie’s head against a cement post. That was due more to the sound effects than the visual.

They never really explain how the zombies came to be, but there are some mysterious explosions off in the distance soon after the beginning. Our theory was it was some kind of virus bomb-detonation thing.

I enjoy a good zombie flick, but there really seems to be an overabundance of them lately. We need a new genre!

Go Into The Story wrote earlier this week about the sale of ZOMBIE PET SHOP, which would be animated and family-friendly. Seriously? Wouldn’t it be easier to just make a new batch of SCOOBY DOO episodes?